RPlog:Prophecy
Bridge - Refrain of Anshalar A multi-tiered place, the bridge of the Refrain of Anshalar is well-lit and spacious, different stations worked seamlessly into the long and gracefully sloping console which dominates the front hemisphere of the circular room. There is no central captain's chair or space, simply a raised walkway and railing from which to observe. The front console is trimmed in white and is unique: no controls are labelled, flat colored touch panels covering the space. The walkway aft splits into two parts, curving around a huge column in the rear of the room. The vertical column is some three meters in diameter, burnished brass and made up of numerous flat interlocking discs. The individual discs are notched and geared in an indecipherable arrangement, symbols and arcane writing etched into their outermost edges. This column is in motion, discs slowly turning on their own power and clicking into place. Aurejin stands at the top of the curving walk, hands at his sides, the slowly shifting column of artistically crafted gears locking into place as the ship and the Jedi make the calculations that will activate the appropriate machined aspects of the _Refrain of Anshalar_ and carry them into orbit about Chandrila. His eyes are open, looking over the unlabelled consoles and the quiet bridge, a pair of New Republic crew members sitting in a seat each just fore of him. The gathering was incomplete, but the timing was right. Mira was nowhere to be found, though this was hardly a cause for worry: she had the resources she needed to take care of herself or at least contact them. She was a Jedi Knight, and would follow her own path. Joshua was a point of concern for the tall man, though he hasn't expressed that past a few statements to Jessalyn and a deepening of his ever-present stern look. Leia would be along soon, as would Luke, and of known Jedi in the galaxy that was it, save the people aboard this very ship. "Tighten up the auxilliary unit four and..." Aurejin instructs, looking to the ceiling. "Six. They have some kind of malfunction." His voice is rich, perfect, but quiet. It was nothing that the rudimentary computer mind on this capital ship would have ever detected. The large ship banks slowly to the side and begins an arc toward the cyan haze of Chandrila ahead. From behind Aurejin, a faint presense can be felt approaching at a rather... slow pace. Even as the globe of Chandrila becomes larger in the front viewports of the Anshalar, a pair of gray eyes regard it quietly, before they turn their attention back towards the tall Jedi. "We've arrived?" The voice is soft, just a bit above whispered. Kyyel stands there carefully, using the railing for a bit of support for the moment, clearly favoring one leg and arm. He had been unconscious for nearly a full day after his run-in with Simon and Mailyn, the encounter leaving the young apprentice with more than a few broken bones, and two broken limbs. All in all, he was faring far better than he would have had Jessalyn not intervened when she haHe had recieved enough healing to be able to move around on his own power, though perhaps a bed would be a better place for the young student at the moment. With her fiery red hair carving a wild outline against the blue sphere of Chandrila and the utter black of space, Jessalyn stands in front of Aurejin, facing the viewport, her gray-green cloak hanging in smooth folds from her shoulders to the heels of her white boots. She was glad to be out of hyperspace, though during the trip she has ruminated on that last conversation with Joshua, wondering if there was more she could have done to persuade him, or if someone besides herself might have had better success. "We have," she replies simply to Kyyel without looking back at the injured student. "First thing when we get there, you should get yourself some rest... maybe a bacta tank." When she turns her head at last to smile at him, she gives Kyyel an assessing gaze. "You look like hell." Aurejin nods once, the barest tilt of his chin offered by way of conversation with the group. The _Refrain of Anshalar_ continues a long burn steadily toward the planet, making it as a painting that is being zoomed in on in the large front viewport. Eventually, the man's concentration lapses and the spinning discs that make up the navigational computer for this legacy-class ship take up their old pace, falling into a familiar rhythm. "Hello Kyyel," Aurejin offers, blinking dark eyes and turning them onto the student with a critical glance. "Tell me of this encounter with the Sith." He walks down the curving pathway beside Jessalyn, patting her shoulder as he glides down toward Marrak. Kyyel manages a weak but still genuine smile at Jessalyn's words, but then shakes his head once, "I feel like it, but I'm alright... I don't think I'll need a bacta tank; besides, the smell sticks on you for days." Reclining back against the railing, he takes a relieved sigh to bring some of the weight from his tired and stinging limbs. At Aurejin's question, he shifts his head slightly, before looking down towards the floor, all traces of his smile now gone, "Mailyn confronted me about what happened on Nar Shaddaa. She wouldn't listen to anything I said, she was just consumed by her need for revenge." He begins quietly, but then turns his gaze to look back towards his two teachers, "She would have killed me, if Simon hadn't shown up. He didn't want my death... just wanted me to suffer." He offers Jessalyn an appreciative glance now, the hints of a smile forming, "That's when Jessalyn showed up. And then shortly after that... Simon wiped out half of the beaches with that wave." Jessalyn watches as Aurejin's robed figure follows the curve of the pathway, then she folds her hands, lips pursed at Kyyel's recollection of that night. "She was consumed by vengeance," Jessa agrees calmly. "But that is to be expected. That is one path through which the Dark Side motivates. And what of you, Kyyel? Where are your duties?" She follows Aurejin until she stops in front of the boy and rests her pointed fingertip on his chest. "How is the Order to survive if we do not even use the Force in our own defense? What have we taught you? Knowledge... and defense. And yet you allowed her to attack you without standing up for yourself. So that the Order would have lost yet another bright flame if I had not intervened." Her stern look begins to soften as she leans back and sighs quietly. "Do not underestimate yourself, Kyyel." Aurejin frowns and folds his arms across his chest, one over the other. "You were lucky," he utters, pronouncing judgment like an impartial judge or lord might have over squabbling peasants. He circles around the injured Corellian man, listening to Jessalyn with downcast eyes and assessing the student's condition. "Or the Sith. Mailyn Raines has been lost to Simon's lies. I do not say that to rob you of hope for her, Kyyel but... if it is her life or your's, it should be hers." The Jedi stalks back up the ramp and takes up his spot looking out the large window, hands clasped behind his back. "Better, a way to keep from drawing your weapon at all, to find a place where it is not a win or a loss. But Jedi Valios is right. Your life is not yours to squander." Though he speaks impartially, it is not neutrally: the loss of Kyyel would be a blow to him. Aurejin speaks with the same pacing and rhythm and has the same expansive view of things. Even to Kyyel's newborn senses, Aurejin is not the man he had known only some days before. There is a profound depth to him, a levity lifting from that humanity, grace realized, memory granted meaning, and the power of the Force palpatable and barely contained in that mortal shape. Kyyel nods his head once more, sighing faintly at Jessalyn's words, "I understand, Jessalyn... but at first, I had simply tried to reach her; to make her understand. I hadn't realized just how consumed she has become until I witnessed it." He looks down to the finger upon his chest, no excuses for his actions coming forth. Still, the soft words seem to lift the apprentice's eyes, and he meets both Jessalyn's and Aurejin's gazes, "I understand." He says again, and he does, but he also has much to think about as well. He views Aurejin carefully for a moment, but even as he begins a faint smile again, a deep wince of pain crosses his features before he can say anything more. With a weary sigh, he rubs one arm lightly, "I think I need to lay down for a moment..." he turns to leave, but then looks back to them both for a moment, saying no more, but his eyes showing that he understands their meaning, and his resolution to follow them as well. With that, Kyyel begins to walk off slowly, limping heavily. As the witch watches him go, she is quiet for a long time, the sphere of Chandrila still enlargening behind them as the _Refrain of Anshalar_ draws closer. "Perhaps he felt so guilty at how he treated her the last time, he was afraid of making the same error this time if he acted against Mailyn Raines," she thinks out loud, shooting Aurejin a quick glance. She still feels the ripples of the Force in his changed being, and though it humbles her, she is no longer afraid. "He will learn. We have to have patience, too," she says with a wry chuckle, raking a hand back through her hair as her teacherly composure finally cracks. "He has made painful mistakes past boundaries on both sides," the Jedi comments, nodding. "And has survived them each time. He will settle into the middle way on his own." Aurejin leans forward and rests his fingertips on the console ahead of them, resting his great height. "When he recovers from his injuries, I am thinking of beginning the next level of his training. Do you think he's ready?" He turns his head so that dark hair falls into his face when he looks back at the witch. Jessalyn places her fair hand on Aurejin's shoulder, meeting his dark gaze. "I think so. It is time... for his own survival at the very least." She smiles gently, and her hand shifts to brush the hair back from his forehead. "I'll be interested to hear what Luke has to say about him. And Joshua. I'm sorry I... fai --" She stops herself on the word and looks down at the deck plate. "I didn't know how to stop him," she admits. Aurejin's brow does the shrugging for him, his look vague. "Joshua must do what he thinks is right, of course. That's just his uncle talking." The Jedi stands and waves indirectly at the New Republic crewman ahead, who nods and promptly gets up and walks to the center of the curved walkway, taking over. He gives a deferential nod to Jessalyn and begins calling out orders. "Bring us about -- two one two. Hail Hanna City command, let them know we've arrived." He presses a finger on the console, calling into the com. "Send a droid team to check out units four and six." Aurejin eases back away from all this activity, confident that the crew is competent and aggressively handling their affairs. He takes a few steps down the walk and holds out a hand for Jessalyn, waiting for her. Presumably his skin is safe to be touched. "Do you think that he will be convinced? I fear for his own safety if he is left too long to his own devices." Aurejin intends no pun, and while the concern is secondary after Joshua himself, he has qualms about the holocube and lightsaber being left in a rogue student's possession. With a last look at the viewport and the planet below, Jessalyn can't help but remember the last time she was on Chandrila... where the so-called Palpatine had ensared her. The thoughts bubble up unasked for, and she quiets them with a renewed strength of heart before she turns for the stairs and listens to Aurejin speaking about their wayward student. Despite the dour topic, Jessalyn's smile is sincere and lovely as she takes the few steps to the tall Jedi and accepts his hand, descending the stairs at his side. "I told him to give the cube to Luke," she says at length. "Though I should have taken it from him myself. You are right, though, we must make sure that it does not remain in his possession." She tilts back her head to look at him, her thumb brushing lightly over the top of Aurejin's hand. "He thinks he knows much when he really knows nothing at all. It worries me." The only energy that flows into Jessalyn is the warmth of expressive compassion, her slender hand given a firm squeeze and an askance look. Her mind was unsettled, still. "Perfection should not be stained by achieving it," Aurejin offers with a thoughtful chuckle. "Though Joshua is intent on siezing perfection and doing with it what he will. I am not ready to give up on him just yet. Perhaps he will see his way clear of obligation and imagined crisis so that he can serve a higher purpose. Serve his people better, still, if he wishes to work for them." The Jedi shrugs as they walk, pausing before the alabaster-colored blast doors which hiss and disappear, sliding away. "I see in you much contentment when you are teaching them. A hint of your true potential seems to shine in those moments." The smell of the rain greets them as he continues aft. ************ Courtyard - Refrain of Anshalar This place is startling in its size and airiness, an open courtyard in the center of this space vessel. It is ringed by a pillared colonnade, fluted stone columns supporting an upper-level walkway that leads into various rooms. A wide staircase at the corner allows access to the upper ring, while exits fore and aft lead along flagstone walks to the extremities of this ship. Almost a hundred meters long and just less than that wide, the courtyard proper is a lush garden, curving beds full of unique flowers and purple-fronded ferns, hanging into the walkways. Multiple pathways wind through the garden, flat rocks spaced unevenly through the soft blades of blue-green grass. Small groves of short trees and vines partition off certain areas. A low to the ground stone fountain lies slightly off the centerpoint of the room, cold water sliding off the top of a single rock in its center. The ceiling of the room is angled in sections, glowpanels softly illumined to replicate the twilight hours. Dim but warm-colored, their 'evening' light filters down into the courtyard. Pinpoint motes of bright blue light appear silently every few seconds, fireflies signalling endlessly to one another as they flit among the plants. **************** Pondering this, Jessalyn steps into the courtyard, white boots crunching on the gravel pathway, and looks up into shining silver droplets of rain that begin to cling to her hair and cheeks. "Oh?" she murmurs, blinking raindrops from her eyelashes and shifting her upward gaze to Aurejin's face. "But I will always have my own self-doubt, I fear." Her hand tenses in his grasp, holding on tighter and somewhat apprehensive. "What kind of potential do you see in me?" she asks softly but insistently, holding his gaze captive with hers. Indeed, she senses something much more profound now as she investigates the link between them, the man more at peace with the Force than ever before, and a sense of his -knowing-, whenever his mind is turned to contemplate her. "Tell me." Water slides off of the elevated criss-crossing array of rafters and antiqued copper pipe, grooves cut into the thick green patina where the rain has fallen. Water hangs like strings of clear gems now, twisting ropes of cool rain giving new life to the forest of perfectly pruned plants. The rain does not fall evenly; a faint mist falls on the pair of Jedi, the droid brain which controlled the watering of the garden staring at Aurejin and Jessalyn from the comfort of its control room and altering the conditions of the room out of consideration for them. Droid brethren received a completely arid environment, thanks to the benevolence of the great droid in the sky, but humans were odd sorts, its old master had instructed it, odd enough to enjoy it when they were caught in the rain. "Not a replacement of the old, but a renewal of it. Not a discovery of the new, but an old shape of it," Aurejin muses. He watches her wet face, the man blinking against the persistence of her gaze and the water on his brow. "The potential of mastery. The wisdom of the new age, wrapped up in you." All of this is easily seen without plumbing the expanses of the woman's future. Aurejin had meditated on the topic often. "Many students, passing into a new Order of Jedi under your tutelage." He steps a bit closer to her, watching her green eyes. "And the mother of our children." The raindrops gather on Jessalyn's shoulders before they stream down the folds of her cloak in little rivulets. She brushes more of the water off her brow as he begins to speak, squinting as the dampness begins to sting her eyes just a tad. Most of it was what she had expected to hear, how she knew he envisioned her future as a Teacher of the new Order, and how they would meld the old ways with her compassioante vision. But the last sentence... for a moment she thinks she misheard, and it was only her mind playing tricks on her. Hearing what she wished to hear. Scarlet blooms in her cheeks and her jaw drops open even as she clings tighter to the hand holding onto hers. "What?" she manages, chuckling nervously. "Is that... that what you want?" Within the gardens, another figure finds the rain gathering over his cloak, and he takes only a moment to flip his hood over his head before he turns his eyes up. Smiling wistfully at the drops of water as they brush his face for a moment, he lowers his head back down, letting the muted impacts of the drops touch the thick cloth of his robes. He takes only a few steps before he finds a seat, followed by a heavy sigh. Kyyel had not visited the gardens upon the Anshalar much at all; and though he had gone to rest, he also couldn't simply sit for any length of time, "Probably why they developed bacta tanks... doctors probably got sick of their patients trying to leave." He speaks quietly to himself, not seemingly aware of the presense of the other two within the garden; or if he is he makes not greeting or acknowledgement of them. Instead, the young trainee closes his eyes, letting his senses calm, slightly easing the pains of his body for the moment. The Master Jedi pauses, holding on to Jessalyn with the one hand that she has snared but lifting his other in front of her face in the rain and showing her the end of white fingertips. "More than that, Jessalyn," Aurejin replies steadily, letting the water run down his smooth skin and gather on the end of his index finger. It hangs there gathering more water to its form, round-bottomed and thick and threatening to fall from its accumulated weight. Kyyel is noticed, and Aurejin orients his body so that the student can hear him, even if distantly. "But it is too much to say, for now. Aside that the Force guides us all. If we do not choose to obey its will, we choose some hollow alternative." The drop has gained some odd properties now, too strange looking to still be there on his skin. "And so it lets those who so choose! It releases us to whatever substitute we can find for it. Inevitably... the best we can do is ourselves. And so it is that hate, anger, fear are made the foundation upon which the Sith build." The model was the same for Force-gifted individuals and not. People driven by those aspects could be found everywhere: Corellia and Chandrila as sure as Selene. "But our story is a happier one, isn't it? We obey the will of the Force, and in truth it is final peace, knowledge, it is contentment that we are standing in the right. If I have ever known its will, I know it now, and I know that our union is something that is willed to bear fruit." Aurejin lifts his finger a little higher, showing it to Jessalyn. "Not because I deserve a reward! None at all. But those young ones will, on that day, be born with new eyes looking on the galaxy and watching in perfect quiet." The man nods slowly, looking past the drop and the rare glint of diamond-light that it throws from its surface, into her face again. "I want it, and more. Hold out your hand." Jessalyn's gaze passes through the droplet hanging on Aurejin's fingertip and into his eyes, faceting them as she listens, feeling once more that his words which might have been mysterious to her once now resonate with the weave of Force that links them. For the most part, she is speechless, though she nods her head in a very slight motion, her agreement and hopefulness passed along directly from her mind. "It's what I've always wanted," she admits, "only now it doesn't seem such a selfish wish after all." Creating new lives, thereby creating the future, and the molding of the Jedi's future. Jessalyn's heart races, and she holds up her hand as instructed, looking from Aurejin's eyes to the strange glinting drop of water on his fingtertip, holding her breath without realizing it. Aurejin's words do indeed reach Kyyel where he sits, and for a moment a curious expression crosses the student's face, before a wide grin allows him to forget his own momentary pain. Not wishing to intrude upon the two for the moment, he instead remains silent, listening with a nod of approval. Jessalyn's words are too soft to make out clearly, but for now, he is content in his spot. As they stand there, Aurejin seems to allot his moment in the exchange to mere quiet, letting the fullness of the seconds infect their awareness, intentionally and wonderfully listening to the crunching of gravel beneath his boots, the pattering of rain on the broad fronds, the rattling hum of the distant engines, the singing of the ship hull as it changes temperature in the system, the warm air caught and swirling in Jessalyn's breast, the thrush of healing blood swimming in Kyyel's toes... the Jedi has never spent a moment more responsibly, never known it to be so real. Aurejin turns his finger in the air, willing the Force-kissed drop to fall from his hand into Jessalyn's palm. When it does, it doesn't break, its surface altered from the usual properties of water. In fact it is not a drop of water at all but a sharp-edged crystal. Not glass, but a gem, perfectly and roundly faceted, the aspects of its natural shape still very present but carved as if from the hand of a master crafter. And what was the Force but the most authentic crafter of any shape, any beauty? Everything made by a man is only a hollow imitation -- whether it is man-made art or man-made devotion to hate, anger or fear. But by amplifying the will of the Force, it is allowed to simply show through, whether it is shown through a person -- known only as Jedi -- or the stunning, lovely, complicated but utterly simple thing known as Real. The gem is resplendent and silvery but just barely blue, catching the illumination from the room and returning it in tight refracted bands of glittering rainbow light. It was not just created from water, it *is* water, but not wet, hardened and crystallized but not cold, its existence a mystery hidden by another mystery hidden by another that even Aurejin cannot articulate. He leans down to kiss the red-haired Jedi, taking her by the shoulders and watching her for a long while. "Kyyel," he calls out, looking askance over his shoulder. "Your sword and other things are in the meeting room above." That was the end of it, this one lesson concluded between master and student: no hollow lecture on philosophy would replace the more valuable gem that Kyyel had crafted by himself with the instruments of his own mistakes. Soon they will begin the next facet of his work. What is Real to Aurejin is magical to Jessalyn, and she marvels at how he can take a moment, or a raindrop, or an emotion and turn what would be mundane into something sacred. Her breath condenses in the cool air as she exhales at last, looking down into her palm where the crystallized water has landed, as precious as any gem, forged by the man's Force-gift rather than the millennia of natural forces. She runs her fingertips across it as it shifts in her palm, catching it between her thumb and forefinger and then smiling radiantly up into Aurejin's eyes as more silvery raindrops fall from her mussed hair and down her face. "Yes," is the only word she utters after he has kissed her, and before she is aware of Kyyel's presence. She turns even redder as Aurejin addresses the apprentice, and she clears her throat, her hand folding tightly around the water-stone in her palm. Jessalyn isn't the only one who turns red at Aurejin's sudden address to Kyyel, and the Corellian's cheeks burn for a moment before he smirks; it was no surprise at all that his presense was noticed, but he had hoped to keep a more discreet place rather than interrupt what was clearly a private moment. Even as he comes to his feet slowly, he can feel the pain deadened slightly still, something he is glad for even as he calls back out; his voice carrying but not as loudly as Aurejin's had, "Yes sir." He speaks no more about it either, instead he simply turns towards the two, limping towards them only a little faster than he had left earlier; he is tempted to go up immediately to get his things, but he knows where they are, and they will not move for now. When he finally comes into view, his smirk becomes a faint grin on his face, "My apologies... I didn't mean to interrupt the two of you." "Not at all," the Jedi responds evenly. It didn't matter if the moment was in full view of a million spectators, or in utter solitude. The outcome would have been the same. The will of the Force, the steadiness of intention, true and welcoming -- not stern! -- all showing in those unblinking dark eyes. "Put bacta on it, and listen well to Jedi Valios' this evening." Should she choose to help heal him. "We'll begin your training tomorrow. You'll need to be rested up." Aurejin shifts his weight and turns back to Jessalyn. "Our futures are inter-connected," he concludes to her quietly even as the rain begins to slow. A certain great droid up in the sky eases back on a lever in his control box, watching the goings on with great interest. Grease pencil marks have given him his name, the writing scrawled in the Jedi mechanic's hasty handwriting over its chestplate: JE-55A. Someone's idea of a joke, no doubt. Aurejin touches her shoulder and turns away, not looking back and clasping his hands behind his lean form and angling toward the steps which ascend toward the elevated ring. "What we join together will not be undone..." he murmurs thoughtfully, though it is as much prophecy as it is speculation -- certainty, though he is unsure from whence the words have come. The rain subsiding, Jessalyn shakes her hair loosely, sending a few droplets flying, and smiling uncontrollably after the tall Jedi has given his speculation. She watches his back as he begins alone toward the steps. "Well," she laughs nervously when he's gone, glancing at Kyyel and then lifting up the gem between her fingers to peer into it with quiet amazement. "Well. I guess we should get ready to go down to the planet," she says to the boy. "He's full of surprises, isn't he?" She shakes her head once more and curls her fingers around the water-diamond, pressing it deep into her palm. Looking at the gem carefully, Kyyel returns the smile after a long moment, nodding his head to her assessment of the departing Jedi, "That's quite the understatement, Jessalyn." He finds a nearby bench to sit upon, discomfort showing on his face for only a moment before he finally settles on his seat, "So, what's the agenda while we're here on Chandrila? And... if you don't mind me asking, where's Josh?" His face looks curiously towards her, his smile fading just a bit. Serenity doesn't exactly fade from Jessalyn's expression, but her level of concern is turned up a notch. "Leia is here on a diplomatic mission of some sort... and Luke wants to meet with us. That's about all I know. Looks like we're going to have a traveling home for a while -- and I'll be happy to take a look at your wounds. I'm sure there's more I can do." Her shoulders sag slightly at the mention of Joshua. "He's decided his duty is more to Corellia than to the Jedi," she says stiffly, lifting her chin. "His choice, but... it is a great loss, on both sides." As water drips from her hair into her eyes, she wipes it back with a loose sleeve. "I've got to go get my things... and dry these clothes. I'll see you planetside?" the woman suggests, turning to go but looking at him with arched brows should he want to add anything. Shock registers over Kyyel's features at her statement of Joshua's decision. For a moment there is no response, but after a bit, he nods his head once, sighing softly, "Yeah... it is." For a little while, he says nothing more, until he finally looks up to her and nods his head only once, his smile returning slightly, "Planetside it is then... I'd definitely like you to take a look at these wounds again when you get the chance; the bones have mended at least, but its still pretty sore." At least he thinks they've mended; he has a few ribs that right now he wouldn't be entirely sure on. Rising to his feet without any of his normal grace, Kyyel takes in a deep breath, "And getting out of wet clothes sounds like an excellent idea." Treating the apprentice to one of her dazzling smiles, Jessalyn bobs her head. "I will! I'm sorry I haven't helped you out sooner. See you, Kyyel." For so long she has been altered, not quite herself, whether afflicted by Force-blindness, consuming fire or disease; Jessalyn has battled the worst foes of all, despair and hopelessness, only to survive because she never gave up on those things that make her the Jedi's Heart. Survive, indeed, she will thrive, no matter what dangers lurk around the corner for them all. Still smiling, radiating hopeful energy, she clutches both fists to her chest, and laughs lightly before she glides up the staircase to the upper level and her own quarters. Prophecy